


Steel Your Heart

by DGCatAniSiri



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 14:38:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7761802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DGCatAniSiri/pseuds/DGCatAniSiri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dragonborn returns home after leaving Castle Volkihar for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steel Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Uses the same Dragonborn from "[The Changing Seasons](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6072670)," but since I couldn't decide if this was set before or after that, can be read independently.
> 
> Title comes from "The Dawn Will Come" from Dragon Age Inquisition. It felt like an appropriate sentiment.

Vilkas had grown used to Lakeview Manor. He was, at heart, still a Companion, still preferred the mead halls of Jorrvaskr. But it wasn’t even a full day’s travel back there if he truly missed it, and his husband was often out adventuring, which often gave him that option. Autem, the Breton who’d been dubbed by the Greybeards as ‘the Dragonborn,’ had lately taken to leaving him behind, having been training a young man from Rorikstead in the ways of adventuring, while Vilkas spent most of the time with the kids, Sofie and Alesan. It had been a reasonable arrangement – since having his wolf spirit defeated, allowing him to one day enter Sovengarde, as Kodlak had, Vilkas had recognized that he was more vulnerable. He had yet to fully adapt his fighting style to account for the difference. He had chosen to stay back with the children, at least for the time being. 

He didn’t particularly care for being parted from his husband. But there seemed to be plenty of things to distract him. There were occasional bandit raids, the odd giant, and, frustratingly enough, every now and then some very stupid necromancer would enter the backyard, apparently intending to use the old ritual stones for something. There was a house with lit lanterns in the window in plain sight of that spot, who thought that was a place to worship whatever Daedric prince you thought would grant you power? Fortunately, they always arrived late at night, allowing Vilkas and Rayya to kill them and dispose of the bodies before the children woke up. It was the one downside of the house, but it was also better than Falkreath had been the last few times that Vilkas had gone there with Autem – there, if it wasn’t a pack of vampires, it was a damn dragon swooping down from the sky. Compared to that, a necromancer was nothing. 

He just wished that Autem could be home more often than he was. Due to his status as Dragonborn, he was basically being called upon to be everywhere at once across the province. Right now, given the vampires running through Falkreath as of late, Autem had sought out the Dawnguard, out near Riften. There was a problem, and, with the civil war tearing Skyrim apart, there was no one else making a concentrated effort to actually do something about them, aside from the Dawnguard. 

Vilkas was trying not to worry. But Autem had been gone for a week now. Not even a letter had been sent by the couriers who Vilkas would swear could run across the province at speeds no mortal could ever hope to match, telling him that Autem was staying at an inn or even one of the houses he’d had to pick up in his seeming crusade to become Thane of every court in Skyrim. Nothing had come, and Vilkas was growing concerned. 

He currently sat on the Manor’s deck, even as night fell upon the land. He knew he should go to bed, that he was worrying over nothing – if Autem were killed, Vilkas was certain the very land itself would shudder at his passing. Even if he weren’t the Dragonborn, summoned by the Greybeards and given this great destiny, Autem was too strong to be slain by a simple pack of bandits. Vilkas knew in his heart that his husband was going to be back. 

Still, as darkness fell, it was harder to believe it would be tonight. Although he knew Autem had no issues with travelling Skyrim at night, it wasn’t particularly pleasant. Besides the necromancers in the back yard, there was always the risk of bandits, wildlife, or dragons. The dragons were rather persistent when it came down to it. There was a lot that could delay him. Sure, daylight was no guarantee either, but at least he’d see anything coming. 

Right as visibility grew too dark for Vilkas to continue reading, he saw a figure moving towards Lakeview. He set the book down and struggled to get a better view. He couldn’t yet make out features, but he saw a glint of the torchlight by the main doors of the manor – it looked like this figure, approaching the manor alone, wore Nordic Carved Armor. And Autem had forged himself a set of it shortly before he’d left for the Dawnguard.

Vilkas waited a moment, trying to catch a glimpse of the person’s face, and... He grinned, knowing that the man approaching Lakeview was definitely Autem. 

He made his way down the stairs to intercept his husband before he was ambushed by the kids, who always seemed to wake up when he returned, no matter how late it was. And, as soon as he could properly make out Autem’s face, he was glad for it, as he saw a look on Autem’s face he’d never seen before. Fear wasn’t a new expression, as any warrior would tell you that the warrior who didn’t feel fear was a fool. But Autem looked more than afraid.

He was shaken. 

Vilkas approached him and he almost instantly threw himself into the arms of his husband. “My love,” Vilkas said, surprised, even as he returned the gesture. “What happened?”

“Not yet, love,” Autem whispered into the crook of Vilkas’s neck. He just held close to his husband, who was feeling a growing sense of unease the more he seemed to need the gesture. 

He waited a moment before pulling back slightly. “Autem, love... should we go somewhere?” He was thinking down to Falkreath, abuse Thane’s privilege and get a room for the night, though he didn’t know if Autem cared to have another journey at this time of night. 

At Autem’s nod, Vilkas took the pouch that rattled with various loot from Autem’s back and tossed it into the chest by the mountain side. They made the journey down to Falkreath in silence, even if it took an hour or so, and mercifully, not a single bear, bandit, vampire, or dragon made an appearance. The inn was empty, and it only took a cordial nod to the keeper behind the bar to allow them a room, apparently able to gather at a glance that they needed the privacy.

Vilkas watched as Autem removed his armor, looking to see if there was some injury that was troubling him. His skin looked unblemished in any new ways – a handful of scars Vilkas was already familiar with were there, but there was no sign of anything new. That didn’t rule out a new brush with death, Divines knew there were enough ways in Skyrim to die without a mark being left on a person’s body, but it spoke against the idea of him having been in combat, assured of his death.

He gently reached out, running his fingers across one in particular, earned as he’d grappled with a pack of bears shortly before the wedding. Autem shivered at the touch, a reaction that seemed to be comfort and discomfort in equal measure.

“Love... What happened?” Vilkas finally asked, not wanting to see his husband like this while nothing he could do to help.

With a shuddering breath, Autem collapsed onto the bed, looking almost fragile. “I... I suppose it will sound silly, compared to everything else, but... The Dawnguard learned that vampires had been poking around a ruin, Dimhollow Crypt. I went and looked at it. There was a vampire hidden in a crypt. This one... She was different.”

“Different? How?”

“Well, for one, she didn’t attack me on sight. First vampire I’d ever met who didn’t do that. She... she’d been in that tomb for... centuries, probably. She didn’t recognize anything about the war or the Thalmor or the Empire.” He shook his head. “She just wanted to go home.”

Having faced more than a few vampires even before he’d met Autem, Vilkas was surprised – most preferred to simply come after and attack anyone who was not a vampire. That there was one who’d been willing to talk... Even before getting to her having been in a tomb for centuries, he had a hard time picturing a vampire who would take the time. But that this one had been in a tomb for centuries...

“What did you do with her?” Vilkas asked, knowing that the rational reaction to a vampire was to kill them on sight. But Autem had, more than once, shown himself to be less than rational, and that the approach was useful for him – after all, ration would have said that once Kodlak had died, that would be the end of things for him, that he’d be consigned to Hircine’s hunt for the rest of eternity. But Autem had been Kodlak’s champion against his beast form, allowing the old man his chance to enter Sovengarde. 

Autem let out a laugh. “I took her home.” The laugh turned into a shudder. “I took her home to a castle filled with vampires and their thralls. The thralls, standing around like... like human cattle.” 

Suddenly, Vilkas understood the reaction that Autem had had. 

He wasn’t done. “The... You could smell the blood in the air. And... and the vampires feeding.” His arms wrapped around himself, almost of their own volition. “Serana, the vampire I rescued... She made it sound like the vampires had lived there for centuries. It... I didn’t ask, no one told me, but... I figured many of those people they were feeding on... they’d lived there for their whole lives, that... that they were just the latest generation of... of cattle.”

By this point, Autem seemed almost in his own world of memory. Which was good for Vilkas, as he was trying to get his mind around the very concept. He at least knew better than to suggest that Autem should have attempted to attack the vampires – the way he described it, he’d been the only member of the Dawnguard there, and if this castle was full of vampires, it would have been suicide to attempt to slay them all. He would have been dead had he attempted to do anything against them.

“How... how did you escape?” Vilkas asked.

“I didn’t. They let me go. Their leader, Serana’s father... he offered to make me a vampire, like him. Said that he could even smell the lingering scent of Hircine on me, even after having vanquished my wolf spirit.” Autem had removed the spirit of his beast form at the same time Vilkas had. Now that Vilkas knew about this offer, he almost wished that they’d both kept their forms, have a defense against this kind of vampire. Autem grabbed Vilkas’s hand, an act done both to ground himself and to comfort his husband. “When I turned him down, he said that my reward would be to walk out of the Castle and return to the mainland. That after I did that, I’d be ‘prey’ once more. I spent the whole journey home... worried that one of the vampires in that castle had followed me. I told Erik to go home to Rorikstead, spent a day trying to cover my tracks and double around, lose any tail I might have had... I was afraid I’d lead them back to the Manor. I even thought of going to Solitude or Markarth or Whiterun, send a letter to you and... I just... I eventually realized that no matter what I did, if there were vampires following me, they’d be able to find anyone I cared about just as easily if I lead them home or not. And... And I needed you.”

At that, Vilkas could only pull Autem into an embrace once more. “I’m here, love. I’m here. You’re safe with me. I’ll stand against vampires, dragons, even the daedra themselves, be by your side through all of it and more.” 

Vilkas’s words caused Autem to sag in relief against him. He held tight to Vilkas, then, after a moment, pulled his head up and kissed him. Gently, Vilkas laid them both down on the bed, keeping a tight grip around his husband’s waist. Whether or not there were vampires coming after them, they would be together, and they would face it that way. If there were more threats coming their way, they needed to have each other. 

“I’ll be here, love. Always.”

“I knew that, but...” Autem’s fingers twined with Vilkas’s. “It’s nice to hear it.”

Though dawn was hours away, Autem relaxed, able to feel secure that when it came, he and those he loved would be there to greet it.


End file.
